Grub Club All Day Buffet review

This food and the middle of the adult dry shelf both score in the Good band. The insect protein is a genuine point of difference and the joint and prebiotic entries carry printed doses, but the plant proteins and the starch load hold the reading where it is. For the dog this food was made for, one that has run out of conventional proteins, that reading understates how useful it can be. A score cannot see that a protein is new to your dog.

Ingredients, as declared: Insect (30%) (Dehydrated Insect, 15%, Freshly Prepared Insect, 15%), Sweet Potato (15%), Potato, Potato Protein, Whole Lentils, Pea Protein, Sunflower Oil, Apple, Beet Pulp, Vegetable Digest, Whole Linseed, Dicalcium Phosphate, Grub Club Superfood Blend (Spinach, Beetroot, Blueberry, Pomegranate Powder) (1.0%), Seaweed Meal, Grub Club Digestion Booster (Mannan-oligosaccharides [Prebiotic MOS] (0.2%), Fructo-oligosaccharides [Prebiotic FOS] (0.1%), Extract of Yucca Schidigera (200mg/kg), MSM 400mg/kg, Chondroitin 200mg/kg.

The headline is insect at 30%, split honestly on the label into 15% dried and 15% freshly prepared. The freshly prepared half still has its water in it and gives most of that up in the oven. So the dried half does the larger share of the work, whatever the even split says. Protein still converts to 30.4% of dry matter, a respectable figure for a food with no conventional meat anywhere on it.

Binding duty falls to sweet potato at 15% and to the potato after it, while whole lentils add fibre along with a useful spread of minerals. Potato protein and pea protein are the entries to weigh up. Both are byproducts left over from processing the vegetable, and neither is protein from an animal. They still count towards the figure on the analysis, so the animal share of that protein is smaller than 30.4% on its own implies. Carbohydrate is estimated at 47.9% of dry matter against 46.2% for a typical adult dry food.

Sunflower oil supplies the fat, one of the gentler plant oils and naturally rich in vitamin E, and whole linseed adds omega 3 in its plant form. No fish appears anywhere on this label, which makes the recipe genuinely straightforward for a dog kept off it.

The digestion block comes with its doses printed. Two prebiotic fibres are dosed, mannan-oligosaccharides at 0.2% with fructo-oligosaccharides at 0.1%, and what they feed is the useful bacteria down in the large intestine. Yucca schidigera extract at 200 mg/kg is the traditional pick for keeping the garden pleasant. Beet pulp sits behind them adding both soluble and insoluble fibre.

Joint support arrives as MSM at 400 mg/kg and chondroitin at 200 mg/kg, both of them printed with their doses. Glucosamine, the third member of the usual trio, is not on this label, so the support here is a pair rather than a full set.

Dicalcium phosphate supplies calcium and phosphorus, seaweed meal brings iodine for the thyroid, and the superfood blend of spinach, beetroot, blueberry and pomegranate powder is declared at 1.0% in total. Printing that total is the label being straight with you, and it tells you the blend is seasoning rather than substance. Vegetable digest is the one entry that stays broad, a palatant included to make the kibble smell worth eating.

£7.08 a kilo, with bags at 1.5kg, 6kg and 12kg.

For a rough idea, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition works through about 237 grams a day on an assumed need of 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That comes to £1.68 a day. The bag's own table asks 210 to 305 grams for a dog between 15kg and 25kg, so watch your dog's outline and settle the difference that way.